The Missive #77
Real life action. Choosing to walk.
“Oh heaven will be like this, a feeling of connection bigger than myself, I am both made larger and smaller.”
- Maggie MacKellar
My Granny Daria died a couple of weeks ago at the age of 93. We had a close and special relationship, and she was my biggest inspiration. Granny was the original clean eating, zero-waste yoga lover long before it was popular. She was funny, smart, spoke five languages, travelled widely and knew the difference between style and fashion. She thought deeply about her place in the world and what she could give back. She loved nature, glamour, God and science in equal measure. She loved men even more. She knew how to get the most out of a cheap cut of meat, an op shop purchase, a fashion accessory and generally, the most out of life.
She was born the daughter of potato farmers in Ukraine, and lived a happy country life until Stalin came to power when she was eight years old. Stalin manufactured a famine to kill off the Ukrainians and then the Germans invaded. She spent the rest of her childhood in Germany, most of it in labour and displaced persons camps. Granny often said her life truly began when she arrived in Australia as a 17 year old. On her first night docked in Port Phillip Bay, she stayed up all night looking at the lights of Melbourne twinkling on the shore, too excited to sleep. Here’s a video of her from just before her 90th birthday — the memory of being a teenager with her life ahead of here is still very clear.
She went on to raise five children with a charismatic but unfaithful husband, who died young. She built a house with her bare hands, travelled widely, fell in love again, worked hard and then had a brilliant retirement on the Gold Coast. She felt closest to God in nature, and every morning for 20 years she’d wake up at 4:30 AM to walk up Burleigh Headland (which she called Burleigh Mountain), praying for all her loved ones by name.
She believed in tough love, and boy was she tough! She had unforgivingly high standards for herself and the people she loved. I think Granny found motherhood challenging, given her own interrupted childhood. She knew how cruel the world could be, and wanted us to be able to withstand it.
As her dementia progressed, it’s like she forgot about all her worries and got to have the childhood she missed out on. She sucked the marrow out of bones, ate chocolate-covered peanuts, and lay on the grass entranced by the jacarandas in October. She’d go on public transport adventures and be delighted when one of her children would turn up at the other end. “Oh, you always know where to find me,” she’d say, unaware my aunts had put an AirTag in her handbag that notified them if she’d gone on the lam from the nursing home.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how Granny got through a time that is not too dissimilar to now. Everything in this month’s email reflects that.
Reading
“As far as you can manage it, you should make sure your psychological centre of gravity is in your real and immediate world – the world of your family and friends and neighborhood, your work and your creative projects, as opposed to the world of presidencies and governments, social forces and global emergencies.”
- Oliver Burkeman
”When it comes to addressing the problems we face, no amount of posting or passive info consumption is going to substitute the hard, unsexy work of organizing.It’s a lesson the Extremely Online Left still hasn’t fully learned, failing where its political enemies succeed. Reactionary right-wing groups like the homophobic and transphobic Moms for Liberty—which seeks to ban books from LGBTQ and BIPOC authors under the guise of “parental rights”—have claimed political victories by seizing power one public school board and small town at a time. Other reactionaries have similarly managed to take their pet grievances about diversity and wokeness to the national level by moving from online outrage to on-the-ground community organizing.”
- Janus Rose, “You can’t post your way out of Fascism.”
“I think of writing a lot like walking. It’s rarely the most popular, the most effective, or the most efficient way of getting to your destination. I don’t always want to do it, and it’s not always technically enjoyable; sometimes it’s boring or slow, sometimes it’s tiring and pointless, sometimes it’s cold or wet or windy and I’m retracing the same steps around my neighborhood that I’ve walked a thousand times and it sucks and I’m miserable and wish I’d stayed inside. Nonetheless, I always feel worse in my body and mind when I avoid it for too long, and it’s a loss that feels greater than just the quantifiable enumeration of calories I didn’t burn or sunlight I didn’t see.”
- Rayne Fisher-Quann, “Choosing to Walk”
Listening
Bully in piano ballad mode. So many great lines.
My sister loves Latin music, and on a recent visit she got me into Bad Bunny’s new album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS. I’m not really into trap, but this isn’t a trap album It’s his love letter to his homeland of Puerto Rico, as well as mourning its change and gentrification.
My cousin died during the covid lockdowns, and I was NOT coping well. My wife, god bless her, sat with me as I insisted on watching every single Lady Gaga music video in chronological order1. Once I was a few in, I noticed she has five different moves she recycles. Amazingly, she doesn’t bust out any of them in this dance-heavy film clip for her new song. 2
Why does nobody talk about the 911 film clip? It’s as good as Marry the Night! Is it because there’s no dancing or Gaga singing gibberish?
What did I tell you about recession pop coming back?
I absolutely loved reading about your granny. I’m sorry for the pain of loss but I was lifted by learning of the love and connection you so clearly shared. I also really appreciated a slightly different perspective on dementia. Perhaps we need to allow people to become children again and be happy for the love and joy they can find there, as challenging as it is for everyone involved. 911 is also an absolute banger. Thanks for writing!!